NO WEATHER WOES
Despite a rainy winter, new snow blankets Laurel Highlands slopes
SEVEN SPRINGS — It rained here all day Tuesday, so where did all this new snow come from?
The same place it has been coming from since late November in this Somerset County resort community — 1,100 HKD snowmaking towers and supplemental equipment strategically located over 285 acres of ski, snowboard and snowtubing terrain. Those are the initials of Herman Kress Dupre, a snowmaking pioneer and former coowner of the resort.
Joel Rerko, director of mountain operations, said the patented and customized snowmaking system and his team of 30 snowmakers, who work around the clock in below-freezing temperatures, made enough snow since 3 a.m. Wednesday to add 6 inches of snow on top of the resort’s 28- to 40-inch base.
That’s enough snow to cover a football field to a depth of 104 feet.
“The snow coverage is impressive,” said Phil Rosso, a 20-yearold snowboarder from Irwin. “The snow conditions [Saturday] will be prime,” he added while watching snowmakers blanket The Streets terrain park next to the aptly named Foggy Goggle bar and restaurant in the base lodge.
Mr. Rosso, a union bricklayer, learned to snowboard at age 5, thanks to the encouragement of his dad, Phil, and his mom, Laurie, both skiers. “I’ve been progressing on my own ever since,” including at resorts in Utah and Vermont, he said.
“Beautiful conditions out there,” said Doug Spies, a 47year-old architect from Mount Washington who started skiing at age 15 in Wisconsin. He was taking a break with Russ Sullivan, 62, of Cranberry, a mechanical engineer who has been skiing for 40 years. Both participated in Friday’s Blind & Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh’s annual fundraising race and ski/snowboard events.
Mr. Sullivan, who spends two weeks every year on the slopes and trails of Vail Mountain in central Colorado, won a bronze medal competing on Seven Springs’ recreational NASTAR (National Standard Race) course on the backside of the mountain. “My age was a factor,” he said with a smile, referring to the NASTAR criteria that helps older skiers qualify for a gold, silver or bronze medal.
“It was a good day; typical Eastern skiing,” Mr. Sullivan added. He found “a good amount of ice,” on some slopes, thanks to all that rain on Tuesday. Skiers and snowboarders avoid what resorts describe as “frozen granular” by navigating around it or by crossing over it and making their speed-control turns on the other side of it.
Betty Lawson, a safety supervisor at an oil refinery near Houston who hadn’t skied since 1993, was on the slopes Thursday and Friday with her daughters, Hunter, 21, and Hannah, 18. Both took snowboarding lessons as did their friend, Greg Verm, 21, also of the Houston area. They are staying in the Southwind Townhouses that offer convenient ski-in, ski-out accommodations on the top of the mountain.
The snowmaking towers range in height from 15 to 40 feet, although most are 30 feet high. The tops stretch out over the slopes. Water, propelled by compressed air, exits through nozzles at the top of the tower into a fine mist with more hang time than the NFL’s top punters. The mist becomes snow on its way down.
Depending on the prevailing winds, snow below the towers can assume the shape and size of a whale. Snowgrooming operators use the snowplow-like front of their machines to reduce the whale to a manageable size by spreading it up and down and all around the slope. They use a tiller attached to the back of the machine to create a corduroylike surface that makes it easier for skiers and snowboarders to carve their turns to control their speed.
When temperatures and slope conditions permit, the resort’s 10 grooming machines go to work creating corduroy about 7:30 p.m. on the North Face side of the resort and then move to the front when those slopes are closed for the night. Mr. Rerko said they stay at it until the slopes open at 9 a.m. the following day.
He said the unusual and extended periods of warm and wet weather since the resort opened for snowsliders in late November has forced the snowmakers and snowgroomers to “rebuild” the snow base 10 times. That’s more than three times the usual number of rebuilds.
“We are grateful for the hard work of the entire resort team, including the amazing job by our snowmakers,” said Eric Mauck, the resort’s chief executive officer. “They practically created winter over and over for so many families to make memories this season.”
“None of us would have skied a day around here this year without snowmaking,” said a skier at Hidden Valley as he slid off the Sunrise triple (three-person) chairlift and hurried to catch up with his family. It was a comment echoed almost verbatim by everyone I interviewed for this story.
Two of the most determined snowsliders I met at Hidden Valley were Jeff and Dawn McCullar of Kittanning. He’s a snowboarder and an environmental project consultant; she’s a skier and a server at a restaurant. They’re both in their mid-40s and had the resort’s slopes and trails virtually to themselves because it was raining. Hard. We met in the Ski/Snowboard shop on the plaza level of the lodge when they ducked in to warm up.
They said they decided to ski in the rain because it was the only day off they had had in weeks.
A couple from Herefordshire, England, Oliver and Christine Bufton, put their 18month-old daughter, Olivia, on short skis and pushed her back and forth between them when the rain momentarily let up. Ms. Bufton said an 8year-old nephew, William Cutress, had taken a private lesson the previous day “and it was wonderful, well worth the money.”
Bob Horrell, the ski patrol director for Seven Springs, Hidden Valley and Laurel Mountain, said many of the injuries he and his patrollers see could have been avoided if the individuals had taken lessons. Skiers and snowboarders experience similar injuries to their knees, wrists, shoulders, thumbs and the occasional concussion, especially if they don’t wear a helmet.
Fresh machine-made snow sometimes can be a factor in a fall.
I returned to Hidden Valley on Wednesday. The previous day’s “liquid snow” had given way beginning about 3 a.m. to snow, a little natural, most machinemade. My companion was John Walsh, 63, no relation, who owns and operates Bethel Bakery with his wife, Chris, in Bethel Park and North Strabane. John is a smooth, strong skier and we enjoyed the sunshine, fresh snow and no lift lines.
The snowmaking and snowgrooming were firstrate. But I found the transition from groomed terrain to fresh machine-made snow, which can be sticky depending on its moisture content, a little tricky to handle on one run. Yes, it was time for a reintroduction to gravity halfway down Angel’s Elbow, a wide intermediate slope.
No harm done. Just an ego injury.